


Love is a Polaroid

by geekinthejeep



Series: The Art of the Meet Cute in the Alternate Universe [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Soulmates, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, with some angst thrown in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekinthejeep/pseuds/geekinthejeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff goes the first half of his life happily convinced he's soul mate-less, while Annie clings to the idea of the perfect soul mate conveniently close to her in age. Neither of them get what they wanted. They make it work anyway. (A soul mate AU spinoff from "The Art of the Meet Cute in the Alternate Universe.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soul Mates and Life Reevaluations

**Author's Note:**

> Since I was asked to continue the soul mate AU started over on "The Art of the Meet Cute in the Alternate Universe," I've chosen to move it to its own story! The original prompt was from thecloseryoulook-thelessyousee on Tumblr for a Jeff x Annie soul mate AU.
> 
> Consider each chapter to be an individual snapshot of their lives, rather than the next chapter in the flow of a story. These won't be set in order in their timeline.
> 
> Title from Polaroid by Imagine Dragons.

He shows off his bare wrist to the world with a defiant sort of pride for the first seventeen years of his life: the boy who doesn't have or need someone else's name has seen firsthand that soul mates don't mean happily ever afters, and only mean being tied down and held back -- and Jeff is meant for better things than being bound to a single person for the rest of his life.

If his soul mate doesn't exist after over a decade and a half, then, as far as he's concerned, they're never going to exist at all; and he's happy to live his life believing he's content with that.  
  
And then he wakes up one December morning during his senior year with _Annie Edison_ tattooed across his wrist in neat, looping cursive and an echo of a dream of bright wide blue eyes that will haunt him until he sees them again nearly nineteen years later in a community college study room.


	2. Soul Mates and Life Reevaluations (Redux)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marissa here on AO3 had asked for an Annie continuation of my previous soul mate drabble back when it was in "The Art of the Meet Cute in the Alternate Universe," and I'm always up for writing more of one of my favorite tropes!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for (vague) mentions of addiction and injury.

She carries the name she's had on her wrist since birth with dignity, the scrawling, messy ' _Jeffrey Winger_ ' that she can cling to as a sign of her own self-worth when the rest of the world seems to have left her to struggle through the worst years of her life on her own.

The name is with Annie when her parents divorce, when she throws back the first (and second and third and hundredth) Adderall, jumps through that glass door and injures herself horribly, drops out of high school, and goes through rehab and numerous reconstructive surgeries - and the name is the only thing she has left once her mother disowns her.

It seems fitting, then, that she finds him once she's finally started to get her life back on the right track, eyes meeting across the study room on her first day at Greendale Community College.


	3. Soul Mates and Life Reevaluations (The Third)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff and Annie share a quiet moment, set some time in the indeterminate future.

She pulls his hand into her lap and traces her finger over the elegant looping scrawl of her name on his wrist, the comforting silence of the living room pulling the words from his mouth, "I spent half my life thinking I didn't have a soul mate. I was so - so _horrified_ when your name appeared." he says, trying for casually unimpressed and knowing he's tumbled right past it into awed.

Annie snorts quietly, blue eyes so much more vivid than anything Jeff's dreams had ever been capable of creating flickering up to meet his, "So romantic. And I wasn't expecting a soul mate nearly twice my age, but we can't all get what we want." she mutters, her head tilting to rest against his shoulder.

"It's a good thing I like you." The words come easily, the same conversation they've been having for years tugging the corners of his lips up in a smile.

She hums consideringly, "It is. Or today would have been a huge waste of time." she says, the low light from the lamp glinting off two new wedding bands when Jeff lets her twine their fingers together.


	4. The Dangers of Kissing (or Public Sexual Education is Bad)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thecloseryoulook-thelessyousee on Tumblr wanted "Jeff and Annie have a problem with making out all over Greendale (and then getting caught)."

Annie manages to hold out for three dates before she pushes herself up on her tiptoes and presses a quick peck to Jeff's lips as they stand outside her apartment door, and it's at this point that she is forced to conclude that kissing Jeff is really pretty great.

So great, even, that it might actually start to become a bit of an inconvenience for the people around them after that - a peck goodbye before class that starts out innocently enough before tongue gets involved and a professor finally feels obligated to separate them, some _light_ kissing in a broom closet during lunch hour that goes great until the janitor has to tap them on the shoulders and ask them to relocate so that he can get at a mop, a full-on make out session in an empty classroom that turns out to be not-so-empty five minutes later, and a kiss that somehow ends with Annie straddling Jeff in a chair in the main office and an absolutely awkward conversation with the Dean.

It really only becomes a problem, Annie supposes, when some vertical kissing on the study room table goes over about as well as could be expected with the rest of the study group - which is to say, it ends abruptly, with a bucket of mop water casually dumped over their heads.


End file.
